Features

In December 1993, Doom is launched as a first-person, 3D shoot-'em-up game. By giving it away free as a cover mount, we contribute to the multiplayer revolution, encouraging folk to hook up multiple PCs and kill friends online. The following April, an American law firm sends out thousands of copies of an unsolicited green card lottery service to the UseNet newsgroup. Their idiocy is treated as bit of a joke until our in-boxes get clogged up with junk. Spam has arrived and there is no cure.

Anyone with 500 quid to spare in 1994 can snap up an Apple Quicktake 100. This is the first digital camera and it produces 640x480-pixel photos badly. But Kodak comes up with an amazing 6.2-megapixel single-lens reflex jobbie the following year. The only problem is it costs over eight grand without the lens.

Windows 95 is launched with MS-DOS bundled as a hybrid operating system. This kicks off the lunatic habit of junking hardware because it can't handle new software. When Apache open-source webserver software arrives, Bill Gates finally admits that the internet could become rather important, and force-feeds Internet Explorer 1.0 into Windows.

Hewlett-Packard breaks the $1,000 barrier with the 4020 CD-R, a device for recording data on to CD-ROMs. Data must be written in a single pass on a one-time recordable disc, but they are cheap and tough and hold 400 times as much data as a 3in floppy.

In April 1996, Jennifer Ringley installs a webcam in her college dorm room and lets it run continuously. The refresh rate is only once every three minutes but, with every detail of the young woman's life on display, it becomes the first opportunity to legally observe the sexual behaviour of a complete stranger.

We get our hands on the Voodoo 3D accelerator graphics card. It has 4MB of memory, costs £300 and gives us high-definition gore on our monitors. Within two years, graphics cards double in speed and impact.

The PalmPilot 1000 is launched as the first proper pocket computer, with dedicated keys for address book, appointments calendar, to-do list and memos. Microsoft hits back by launching its own operating system for the PDA market, Windows CE.

Mass piracy is unleashed in April 1997, thanks to Justin Frankel's Winamp MP3 software, and career opportunities are opened for scammers following the launch of web-based banking in the UK. As the era ends, Apple and Microsoft are entangled in litigation over who stole the look and feel of their operating systems from whom. Surely this sort of unpleasantness will be resolved quickly?

1 1993-1997: The way we were We have emerged from the basement mausoleum and now inhabit a grand red brick edifice on Bolsover Street, with windows and air. This is definitely at the hub of things, with Great Portland Street on our doorstep and media-land all around. By now contributors are sending in their work via email, with just a few diehards still phoning up to see if their words have really arrived. After various combinations of yellow, blue and red, our masthead on the front cover is set in friendly white capital letters. The magazine is now printed on the sort of razor sharp glossy paper that shareholders in Elastoplast drool over. Each issue is crammed with full-colour images. Advertisers are queuing up to parade their wares before our ever-increasing readership. Such is the demand for each new issue, newsagents shelves collapse under the weight and postmen suffer hernias as they assault our subscribers' letterboxes. For Christmas 1994, we give away a free floppy containing two great games plus 16 screensavers. By the summer of 1995, we are cover-mounting CD-ROMs packed with the latest utilities and entertainment. We also set the trend of sticking booklets to our covers, ensuring that only the most sedate readers can collect a pristine set of magazines for their personal archive, while the rest of us rip the covers to shreds. Computing is no longer the realm of enthusiasts and boffins. By now it affects the lives of everyone, every day. Shopper reflects this in each issue. The team grows at an amazing pace, and we boast a gaggle of editors, a herd of production staff, a shoal of labs workers and no fewer than two-dozen freelance contributors. Before our tenth birthday, we have absorbed three other magazine titles.